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What is Charity
Charity is not just doing for other people, but having the love of Christ filling our being to the point that we see and react to others with an outflow of love that comes directly from Christ. We not only have taken on Christ's countenance, but His unconditional love for mankind. We have truly become His instrument to administer to others.
Acts of charity take such forms as loving thy neighbor as thyself, loving your enemies, relieving the oppressed, pleading for the widow, being a good Samaritan, having faith and hope, being kind, giving out of a pure heart without thought of gain.
Charity rejoices in truth. It believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Moroni 7:45
What Charity is Not
It is not a companion to envy or puffed up pride. It is not done for selfish purposes, for recognition, or because of pressure. One having charity is not easily provoked, or engages in evil thinking , or rejoicing in iniquity. Moroni 7:45
The Blessings of Possessing Charity
Giving charity is more of a blessing to those that give it, then it is to those that receive it. The reason is that to develop charity we nurture important attributes of Godliness such as forgiveness, long suffering, kindness, and patience.
Moroni 7:47 states that those who are found possessing charity in the last day, it will be well with them.
1 Peter 4:8 states that charity shall cover a multitude of sins.
If We Don't Posses Charity
The bottom line is that without charity we will not be saved. Moroni 10:21 So by being selfless and helping others we are actually saving ourselves.
How Does One Gain the Pure Love of Christ?
First we have to show God that we love Him. We do this trying to keep His commandments. He says, "If ye love me keep my commandments. " John 14:15 One of these commandments is to love one another. John 13:34 The Savior promises us, "If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love." John 15:10 When this happens one has gained the pure love of Christ or true charity.
One cannot start to keep all the commandments at once. The Lord expects us to set goals and devise a series of smaller goals to be able to accomplish the larger goal. Then He expects us to follow through accomplish that goal. In a step by step manner we become perfected.
The Lord does not expect us to become perfected all by ourselves. He has given us Church leaders and a ward full of caring individuals to help us. He has also promise to help us Himself if we but ask Him to.
Very few of us will be totally perfected the day we die and leave this mortal existence. The Lord knew this so when He said, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." He didn't mean that we had to be absolutely perfect to get back to Heavenly Father, but He did expect that we should be actively engaged in the work of perfecting ourselves. We should always be trying to make ourselves better. If we do not know where to begin, we can ask the Lord to show us where to start. When asked He will even help us plan out how to over come that problem in our life. If we will do this the Christ, through His atonement, will make up the difference so that we can make it back to our Heavenly Father.
We should go to the Lord each morning to ask for help on our goals for the day. We should ask the Lord to be with us through our day. We should pray and ask for help as problems arise in our day. Then at night we should go over the days events and critique how well we did. At this point we can figure out better ways to handle parts that went badly and set goals for the next day. This is also a good time to go over the events for the next day and plan ways to handle potential problems before they occur.
In this way we come to know and love our God and He is able to show us more fully that He loves us as He prepares a way for us to succeed.